"I hope that some of the students who are here today will find an opportunity that matches their interest and their talent.''

Montreal turning into AI hub

The Montreal lab will employ 10 researchers to begin, with the aim of tripling that number in the coming year.

That would put it on par with three other Facebook hubs currently based in New York City, Paris and Menlo Park, Calif., and serve as recognition that Montreal has quickly developed a concentration of expertise in the area of artificial intelligence.

McGill University's Joelle Pineau will lead the Facebook lab. (CBC)Apart from the lab, Facebook said it intends to invest $7 million in the city's AI community to fund research and students.

Yoshua Bengio, a computer science professor at Université de Montréal and an AI researcher, says Facebook is not just applying artificial intelligence, but is also creating new science.

"Facebook and a few other companies have been really contributing to the best science that is happening in our field in the last few years,'' Bengio said. "This is unusual. It's not what you usually see in industry.

"But AI's moving so fast and the importance of having the best people in one's company is so critical.''